BOTC - US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums MID-ATLANTIC LACROSSE MARYLAND FORUM Boys 2028 Grads - Mid Atlantic Region

This sounds like the Spalding-St. Mary’s - Severn conversation surrounding the Hawks and other AACo lower level teams.

Agree re education. My sense with my older is if u want to play (and have the skill obviously) in college there are places for most players. Nothing wrong with a solid D3 school with great education.

Top D1 is a fantasy for most laxdads. Highly unlikely it is going to happen. Here are the ML commits: https://capital.madlax.com/collegecommitments

Don't go changing 2028s! This is quickly becoming the best board on BOTC. Class warfare at its finest with a triangle of smack talk with Annapolis, DMV and Baltimore moms/dads all active and bonkers. Throw in some genuinely useful content on programs, tournaments, schools and Bored MD Dad (a hero) and rack up the page views - I'll keep coming back.

Anyone attending the 2028 Nationals tryouts/combine at Towson this weekend?

G is a grifter. Buyer Beware.

Can you elaborate? What are the advantages / disadvantages to playing with one of these national/showcase teams at this younger age group?

As a parent of an older kid who plays at a very high level and did this. The only advantage for us was learning what a lax away of money this was at a young age and we stopped. Have your kid make the best team and stand out there if you think he is a National or showcase player. If he is not good enough to make the best team in your area, have him work at that, not to be on a Showcase team. The sales pitch to us was "You can take your kid to all the showcase teams and spend all that money, or you can play here and be in every championship and people can watch your kid there" Made sense to us so he worked to get on the best team and they are highly scouted. There are plenty of ways to enjoy lax, even at a high level and play a lot (all year long competitively local) without dragging your kid around like a circus monkey. The one other huge advantage is if parents are putting there kids on select teams at this age they are the ones really living their life through their kids and think it is the PLL/MLB/NFL/NBA all in one youth lax team. The sideline antics from a lot of the dads who sunk a lot of money in to these pipe dreams and grifters is more belligerent then on your local level.

Or, just maybe, the advantage is getting to play with kids from different areas and meeting new people and getting coached by different coaches who may have a different philosophy than your regular club coach. Maybe at this age it isn’t about getting seen but more about building a solid skills foundation and expanding your lacrosse relationships. At least, that what it is for us for our older son.

If the response to "Here's the only real data-driven difference in athletics experience that ML and Hawks dads are looking at" (D1 recruiting success) leads you to call the poster drunk, LOL the post maybe hit close to home. That post brings up some interesting and booooooooo boring concepts like that maybe ML and Hawks kids don't have more fun at HS, don't have happier marriages, and don't make more money than some random kid playing at Greene Turtle or FCA AAA.

ML and Hawks are fantastic destinations for 45-50 of the country's top athletes. But it's a good straw man type argument that the rest of the 200? kids playing HoCo AA, AAA and Elite ball have a decent chance of living out those dreams too at a smaller stadium or a new program. Most of those kids parents can pick up a big chunk of college costs anyway, because it's MD lax parents.

As long as the check clears!

If your kid plays in MD (especially hoco elite) or the Northeast where there is regular opportunity to play the highest level lacrosse, these National teams are pretty pointless at this age.

However if you are a non hotbed state then there are opportunities that playing for a team like Nationals will afford that might not exist otherwise.

Describing that post as "data-driven" is a massive stretch; it was almost entirely anecdotal. If the point was that it's not crazy for lax dads to be arguing on this forum because being on a top team guarantees elite college admission, then at a minimum the author would need to figure out how many kids playing for elite teams when they're 11 are still on those teams when they're 18. From what I've seen, the rosters turn over significantly as the kids age.

The author also notably name-dropped Harvard. Okay, but Hawks post 7 years of commits online an in that time they have sent more players to, for example, Furman (3) than all Ivy League schools combined (2). MadLax seems to do much better on that measure, but that suggests that, all else equal, when it comes to getting into super-elite colleges growing up in McLean with parents who can send you to elite prep schools may matter more than lacrosse.

Look, this isn't to criticize Hawks or MadLax -- they're both great programs and should be proud of their success (or Furman, which I'm sure is a great option for lots of kids, despite the OP disparaging small schools) -- but if your kid's 6th grade sports team placement, let alone your propensity to talk bout it on message boards, is a big part of your college admissions planning, well, I hope you have a plan B.

You may be forgetting that Cornell is in the Ivy League, and that Georgetown, UVa, Army, Navy, Air Force, Carolina, Hopkins, Lehigh, Lafayette, and others on that list are pretty tough schools to get into — and those Big 10 schools are pretty good too — but I understand your point. The best thing to be is be a gamer who fits the academic profile. Even better, hit the books at a great school and you won't have to worry about anything.

The biggest thing the better teams offer are the opportunity to practice and compete against great players. If you're a beast and you spend practices tooling on weaker players then why wouldn't you try to make the jump?

Tryouts for nationals never end. Ever camp before tournaments is a tryout for new kids. They are always looking to add talent and money to their pockets. It’s never a set team. It is a cool thing to play with kids around the country and make friends but can be a lot for people without deep pockets. Paying more to play on nationals then regular club to me doesn’t make sense. Also if you play on a top local team nationals is out to beat you and when in same tournament it’s obvious you should play for your local team.

Nope, Cornell was one of the two Ivies total over the last seven years. And yes, some really good schools mixed in (though not at nearly the rate the OP implied), but the idea that being on a good 6th grade lacrosse team is somehow a golden ticket is bonkers.

If your kid likes lacrosse then awesome, have him play lacrosse. It’s a great sport. But if you’re an obsessive parent then just relax and realize it’s youth sports instead of trying to justify your obsession by claiming it’s all somehow for your kid’s long term well-being.

Agreed. Some people on here have a lot of spare time to research facts about clubs and schools to justify there obsessing about middle school lacrosse. Don’t destroy your kids love for the game.

Did True Annapolis set their rosters? All notifications went out by now? Was curious if there was any movement off the team

I’m sure they have, just waiting on players who we’re hoping to make the 28 Hawks

True lost both their best players to Hawks.. they ought to move to the B division

Spare me… losing 2 players isn’t the end of the world. They are 11. Didn’t True take Hawks to OT?

Because two players make a team?

They can still play at A not AA or elite

Yeah- I doubt that will happen again. Bet!

Losing your Faceoff guy will be a killer!

Did fo go go toHawks?

Yeah, heard he was a 2029

I’m
Went to Hawks 29, but gained a FO guy from out of state.

Why can’t they still complete at the top?? Not all teams can be the best team. You need teams to fill AA

He will easily be the best player on the 29s. Kid is very good.

I thought the 28s were getting the 27 forgo, now it’s an out of state kid?

They didn’t even need one, the one they had was good.

Yeah like 3-4 players make that team up for sure, losing two is killer

All clubs lose players every year. They also gain players every year.

This is largely a nonstarter.

Sounds like a handful of players moving around in Annapolis and I know VLC is starting a 2028 team, but any changes on MadLax, Next Level, FCA, etc.?

Wait, so losing 2 kids off of an 11 y/o team (12 year old for MadLax) isn’t the end of the world?

27 Fogo is now 28 backup. Sorry pops.

Hmm, was it worth the holdback?

Didn’t know VLC was starting a 2028. Cool Beans. The more the merrier.

Would they play elite? I know HoCo wants 8 teams in that division. I suppose 6 are locked in with hawks, Madlax, FCA, crabs, true annap and NL. Is BLC 7th team? Still need an 8th.

There will likely be a logjam at AAA from how it appears also.

Not true. Another troll. Probably a TRUE parent whose teams all got worse

Ive heard there are at least 4 kids who were moved from FCA blue to white. Not sure the back story, my son isn’t on the team but we have several friends there.

One of the FCA goalies went to Crabs and one moved from white to blue. Not much change on Crabs.

There were like a million kids at FCA tryouts. I can only imagine they got better.


NL had nice nice numbers but I heard hardly none of the new kids made the team.

Hawks has two solid teams at this age so had the second highest tryout attendance behind FCA. I’m sure they got better.


IDK about Madlax.

Not sure if crabs added any new kids. Which isn’t good for them.

True Annapolis seems to have had some defections and may not be as good but who knows.

So I’d guess Hawks and FCA better. Madlax push? NL push?

True maybe slightly worse? Crabs won’t be a factor until the holdback train leaves the station in a year or 2.